Victoria Larson works with UNANIMA International, a coalition of 20 congregations of women religious worldwide that does advocacy and education at the United Nations in various areas of human rights and social development. She graduated from Vassar College in 2014 with a degree in geography and plans to attend law school and spend her career advocating for migrants, girls and other vulnerable populations.
This story appears in the See for Yourself feature series. View the full series.
by Nancy Linenkugel
Contributor
October 22, 2015
See for Yourself - “It feels so good to have saved up some money so that I could pay off an old debt. Yay!” exclaimed friend Amarie. “Yes, I’m really happy for you," I said. And are you going to share your secret of how you did that?”
by Saji Thomas
Contributor
October 22, 2015
Many people in India, regardless of their religion, use a certain Catholic nun’s hymns when they want to praise God. However, few know their author or her struggles to be able to compose them. Over the past 26 years, Sr. Pushpanjali Paul has produced 15 volumes of audio cassettes and compact discs containing more than 300 hymns in Hindi, India’s national language. These hymns are commonly used in Christian churches across northern India and at functions of different religions, too. The 57-year-old nun is a member of the Missionary Congregation of Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit, who are popularly known as Holy Spirit Sisters.
Lydia Noyes is a 2015 graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with degrees in environmental studies and international development. In August, she and her husband, Ian, moved to the Big Laurel Learning Center in Kermit, West Virginia, and have committed to at least a year of service through the Notre Dame Mission Volunteer Americorps program. There, they split their time by aiding in the local schools and helping to manage Big Laurel with Sr. Kathy O'Hagan and Sr. Gretchen Shaffer.
Sharon Zavala is a Humility of Mary volunteer in Immokalee, Florida. She works at the Guadalupe After-school Program, tutoring immigrant children who live in low-income households, and at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, where she helps educate consumers on the issue of farm labor exploitation. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, she holds a bachelor's degree in both environmental studies and Spanish language from Allegheny College, where she was involved with the Latino organization on campus as secretary and was an active member of Students for Environmental Action.
by GSR Staff
October 21, 2015
“Much of our world now is a fabrication, a fiction, a manufactured and manipulated time-lapsed piece of film making where a rose no longer unfolds, but bursts. Speed is the buzz, the blur, the drug. Life out of focus becomes a way of seeing.”
October 21, 2015
From A Nun's Life podcasts - How do you respond to a communal prayer with which you do not agree?
by Caroljean Willie
Contributor
October 21, 2015
Long before the publication of Laudato Sí and Pope Francis’ call for an "ecological conversion," Catholic women’s communities had already recognized that their “communities have an important role to play in ecological education” and have “strived to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society, and our relationship with nature.” These initiatives have taken many and diverse forms, including establishing environmental centers. I am currently participating in a sabbatical program at one: An Tairseach Dominican Ecology Center, in Wicklow, Ireland.
by GSR Staff
October 20, 2015
"Contemplation invites you to surrender the words that interpret our faith, our experience of God. It is a wordless prayer. It is a form of non-discursive meditation."
October 20, 2015
GSR Today - I like to think I’ve got a handle on what people are talking about on Twitter. I mean, I’m not one of those social media types who has multiple devices in order to keep obsessive tabs on everyone and everything — but at the very least, know what is trending on the site and why. Last week, however, I all but missed an interesting meme that was making the Twitter rounds thanks to Elle UK.